An Industry Partnerships Approach to Tourism Education - CiteSeerX

Vol. 6, No. 1. ISSN: 1473-8376 www.hlst.heacademy.ac.uk/johlste

PRACTICE PAPER

An Industry Partnerships Approach to Tourism Education David Solnet ([email protected]), Richard Robinson ([email protected]) and Chris Cooper ([email protected]) School of Tourism, The University of Queensland, Australia DOI:10.3794/johlste.61.140  Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education

Abstract Tourism-related fields such as hospitality, leisure, sport and events, are applied subject areas, demanding that academics, students and curricula develop, and benefit from, close links with industry. However, strategies for industry engagement in many education institutions are often haphazard and lack focus, commitment and resources. This traditional and often indiscriminate approach to industry linkages is no longer adequate for the contemporary educational institution where there is an imperative for community engagement and curriculum relevance. This realisation prompted the University of Queensland’s School of Tourism (UQST) to pioneer a new strategic approach to industry engagement initiatives based upon a partnership approach. This paper provides an outline of this new programme. Keywords: Education, Industrial Placements, Industry Partnerships

Introduction Tourism-related fields such as hospitality, leisure, sport and event management deal with specific sectors of the tourism industry and, as such, can be thought of as applied subject areas. This is in David Solnet is new to academia, coming directly from an 18-year management career in the restaurant and country club industries. Because of David’s profile within the hospitality industry, both within Australia and in the USA, he has been able to offer students distinctive insights in relation to their education and to their career aspirations. His PhD examined turnarounds from poor performance in the hotel industry, and the effects of organisational change on employee attitudes. Richard Robinson spent 18 years in the hospitality industry, as a chef, predominantly managing food service operations in the prestige club sector. Contextualising his industry experience, Richard graduated, from The University of Queensland, with a Graduate Diploma in International Hotel Management in 2004, and is currently a doctoral candidate and an Associate Lecturer at The University of Queensland. His research interests include hospitality labour turnover, academe/industry partnerships and the sociology of food. Chris Cooper is Foundation Professor of Tourism Management in the School of Tourism at The University of Queensland. He has an honours degree and PhD from University College London and before beginning an academic career worked in market planning for the tourism and retail sectors in the UK. Chris has authored a number of leading textbooks in tourism, and works closely with the UN World Tourism Organization in developing the status of tourism education on the international stage.

Solnet, Robinson and Cooper (2007) An Industry Partnerships Approach in Tourism Education contrast with generic business subjects such as accounting and marketing. Applied subject areas, by their very nature, demand that academics, students and curricula, develop and benefit from close links with industry (Cooper and Westlake, 1998). However, it has been suggested that tourism industry linkage strategies in many education institutions are often haphazard and lack vision (Busby, 2005), focus, commitment and resources (Cooper and Westlake, 1998; Solnet, 2004). Where industry linkage strategies do exist, they are often centred on industrial placement or work experience models (Busby, 2005). In part this represents the old way of thinking about industry engagement – with a quantitative requirement of hours, but with no qualitative consideration of the standard of the experience in industry. Of course, industry placements have long been a part of tourism education (e.g. King, 1991), with the majority of tourism-related programmes continuing to require a period of practical experience, which is normally essential for graduation. While these programmes come in different forms and guises (also known as industrial experience, industrial placement, supervised work experience and internships), they tend to follow a similar pattern. The lengths of the programmes vary from institution to institution, and programme to programme, but generally the format includes a compulsory section where students are exposed to working life in an industry segment. The educational institution normally instigates the organisation, administration and management of the industrial placement programme. Essentially, the educator develops links with industry, communicates these to students, becomes involved (to a varying degree) in the selection process, perhaps visits the student while on placement and assesses the experience upon their return to study (Barron, 1996). The logistics of managing and administering this model of industry engagement creates a range of problems. These include: • Generation of a plethora of surface-level industry contacts. • Contact with industry personnel at relatively low levels of the organisation, such as at the human resource administration or operational level. • Staff responsible for these programmes are often not academics and lack the industry background to develop these relationships fully. For an academic there is no career advantage in a heavy time commitment to the management of this type of industry engagement. • The quality of the student experience is often poor, with low-level tasks and little attempt to structure the experience on the part of industry. Fundamentally, the old model of industry engagement was based on a conflict of objectives – the industry partner is often seeking cheap labour - the educational institution is seeking a structured training experience for the student. Whilst there are exceptions to this rule, it remains a common issue across the sector. In essence, partnerships founded on these outcomes lack strategic direction and do not fully reconcile the interests of the educator, the industry and the student. This traditional and often haphazard approach to industry linkages has been challenged by a series of new initiatives at the University of Queensland’s School of Tourism (UQST). As part of an overall repositioning strategy, the UQST committed to a new and separate initiative aimed at creating and nurturing industry partnerships. Whilst the initiative was designed to deliver a range of benefits to the School, one of the key objectives was to enhance the student experience.

Stakeholder Theory

INFORMS

Teaching Research

Relationship Management

Service

Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education 6(1), 66-70.

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Solnet, Robinson and Cooper (2007) An Industry Partnerships Approach in Tourism Education Figure 1: Drivers of industry and government partnership strategy at the UQST

The focus on industry partnerships as a key strategic initiative of the School is illustrated by the right hand side of Figure 1, which shows the overarching value of industry partnerships in relation to the main objectives of university education, teaching, research and service. The left hand side of Figure 1 illustrates the fundamental importance of stakeholder theory and relationship management as the primary underpinning of the approach.

Theoretical underpinnings The concept of industry/education partnerships draws legitimacy and strength from two theoretical frameworks- stakeholder theory and relationship management. Stakeholder theory can be traced back to the depression era, although the proliferation of stakeholder theory applied to business began with the work of Freeman (1984). Despite the great number of definitions and interpretations of stakeholder theory, they are all based on the fundamental principle of interest in an organisation or undertaking. While most of the literature on stakeholder theory is focused on the areas of business ethics and strategy, there does exist some discussion and application of stakeholder theory in education (e.g., Christou, 2002; Cooper and Westlake, 1998; Crispin and Robinson, 2001; Enz et al., 1993; Solnet, 2003; Lewis, 2005; Lewis 2006). Industry is a primary stakeholder group for tourism education institutions. As a result, tourism education could be enhanced significantly if employers themselves were able to play a key role in the design and delivery of the tourism curricula (Crispin and Robinson, 2001). Similarly, students are deserving of better representation in the industry for which they are being prepared and, through their educational experience, need to develop impressions and contacts in the industry. Educators, often the conduit between industry and students, should focus on providing quality education that prepares students for working life and furnishes employment opportunities appropriate to their level of qualification (Crispin and Robinson, 2001). A relationship clearly exists between the providers of education (institutions), and the end-users of this process (students, industry). This implies that a relationship management approach can be usefully applied to gain understanding about ways in which such relationships can be enhanced (Jain et al., 2003). Applying the relationship management approach to tourism and hospitality education could have a similar impact that it has had on the business world (Gronroos, 1994). Gummesson (2002) considers it important for educators to enhance their links with industry, community and government as a subsequent symbiotic relationship will occur that might serve all stakeholders indefinitely. This has two key implications: 1) Relationships between education and industry must be managed, developed and nurtured. 2) This relationship management approach demands a strategic decision and commitment on the part of education.

A three-part initiative The UQST has taken a strategic decision to more effectively engage industry through a relationship management approach. This new initiative incorporates a stakeholder theory approach coupled with an integrated relationship management focus. This required a resource allocation decision that resulted in: the creation of a dedicated industry partnerships team; the delivery of an industry-based professional development course on the School’s degree programmes; and a new and innovative approach to industry placements. The first part of the three-part plan was the development of an industry partnerships team. A newly appointed academic with strong industry ties was employed with the express responsibility of developing industrial links and working as an advocate for tourism education and for the University. Identified, early in the process, was the need to engage industry at a more senior level than that


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Solnet, Robinson and Cooper (2007) An Industry Partnerships Approach in Tourism Education afforded by the traditional approach. In the School’s experience, once contact is made and an agreement reached between the School and a senior industry manager, the relationship then operationalises the human resource area with much more vigour and commitment than had the relationship begun at lower organisational levels. As the programme developed, additional members of staff with recent and relevant industrial experience have been employed. This allows for continued dialogue, relating to industry partnerships, to occur at an appropriate level. The second element of the initiative was the design of a professional development course for students in their final year of undergraduate study. The course was designed to reconcile the interests of the principal stakeholders, and facilitate the integration of career services more fully into academic studies, with the hope that students would be more prepared for their early careers. The primary learning objectives of this course covered areas such as: career options; guidance and management; and the development of practical and personal skills, such as resume preparation and performance at interview. In addition, this course exposed students to a range of guest speakers as a means of learning about different aspects of industry and career path opportunities. The overall aim of the course was to bridge the divide separating theory and practice. Finally, nested within the professional development course is an innovative student placement programme titled the Executive Shadow Program (ESP). This unique programme was developed as an integral response to the challenges of industry relations. It is the defining element of the UQST industry partnership approach and replaces the ‘work experience’ model previously used by the School. The ESP is an opportunity for the UQST’s best students to represent themselves, and the School, while being mentored by senior industry executives. While all students enrol in the professional development course discussed above, those selected for the ESP spend a period of 60 to 80 hours shadowing a senior industry executive. The ESP is put into operation by inviting the School’s highest achievers, identified by superior grade point average, to participate in the programme. This initial selection is followed by a series of applications and interviews, within the School and then with industry partners. The selection is competitive with several students competing for the same shadowing positions. While the main objective of the ESP is to provide students with an appropriate level of industrial experience, it also acts as an opportunity for the School to expose its best students to industry and also to facilitate student career fast tracking, which Lorsch and Tierney (2002) label ‘stars’. While still in the development stage, the implementation of the industry partnership strategy has reaped a wide range of benefits for the repositioned UQST. The benefits of the programme, however, are shared between the principal stakeholders. For industry, the ESP provides access to top students from relevant fields of study, which presents them with potential recruitment prospects, and also current expertise which may be applicable to project work (e.g. Cho et al., 2006). For students, the programme presents an opportunity to view their future careers from above and increase the likelihood of rapid career progression. For the School, the ESP has cemented links with industry and further demonstrated that the School has been repositioned as a legitimate source of future industry leaders.

Conclusion and future research This paper aimed to outline a new approach to industry partnerships, in recognition of the fundamental flaws of the old paradigm of industry engagement. However, despite the obvious success of the approach it also faces a number of challenges. For example, should the programme grow beyond the ‘stars’ and high achievers to be more inclusive? Or would this dilute the experience, particularly from industry’s point of view? Does the exclusivity of the programme raise questions of equity in relation to those students unable to participate in the programme? Additionally, significant resources are required to manage the depth of the relationship with industry partners in the ESP. This, then, becomes a strategic resourcing issue for the School. The UQST approach to industrial engagement delivers high-level industry exposure to students and transcends the old paradigm based upon an ‘hours’ model of industrial experience. It is argued that,


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Solnet, Robinson and Cooper (2007) An Industry Partnerships Approach in Tourism Education while resources have been invested in this programme, the UQST has approached the issue from a strategic perspective, underpinned by stakeholder and relationship management theoretical frameworks: a position from which the major stakeholders of education, industry and students are already reaping benefits.

References Barron, P. E. (1996) The theory and practice of industrial placement: an analysis of hospitality students’ experiences, Australian Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 4(1), 15-26. Busby, G. (2005) Work experience and industrial links. In D. Airey and J. Tribe (Eds.), An International Handbook of Tourism Education. London: Elsevier. Cho, S., Woods, R. and Sciarini, M. (2006) How hospitality students develop perceptions of potential employers: a post-internet update. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 47(2), 135-145. Christou, E. (2002) Revisiting competencies for hospitality management: Contemporary Views of Stakeholders. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education, 14(1), 25-32. Cooper, C. and Westlake, J. (1998) Stakeholders and tourism education - curriculum planning using a quality management framework. Industry and Higher Education, 12(2), 93-100. Crispin, D. and Robinson, N. (2001) The theming of tourism education: A three-domain approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 13(1), 30-34. Enz, C., Renaghan, L. M. and Geller, N. A. (1993) Graduate-level education: A survey of stakeholders. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 34(4), 90-95. Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. New York: Pitman. Gronroos, C. (1994). From marketing mix to relationship marketing: towards a paradigm shift in marketing. Marketing Decision, 32(2), 4-20. Gummesson, E. (2002) Total Relationship Marketing (2nd ed.). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Jain, R., Jain, S. and Khar, U. (2003). Measuring customer relationship management. Journal of Services Research, 2(2), 97-108. King, B.E. (1991) Cooperative education for hospitality and tourism students: An Australian case study, New Horizons in Tourism and Hospitality Education, Training and Research, Calgary, 19126. Lorsch, J. L. and Tierney, T. J. (2002) Build a life, not a resume. Consulting to Management, 13(3), 44-52. Lewis, A. (2006) Stakeholder Informed Tourism Education: Voices from the Caribbean. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 5(2), 14-24. Lewis, A. (2005) Rationalising a Tourism Curriculum for Sustainable Tourism Development in Small Island States: A Stakeholder Perspective. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 4(2), 4-15. Solnet, D. (2004) Linking industry and education providers: A relationship management approach. Paper presented at the Council for University Tourism and Hospitality Educators, Brisbane, Australia. Solnet, D. (2003) The "missing in action" workforce: Innovations in hospitality and tourism curriculum. Paper presented at the Council for Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Educators, Palm Desert, CA.


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